TV Pilot Writing and Dive Bar Hunting

WRITE ON NEW YORK

Back and forth, their lawyer, my agent, their lawyer, my agent, for weeks and then a month and then two. Finally, my agent tells me I need to walk away from the deal, it isn’t fair, and I call the producers and say, “We need to meet.”

There are three and they’re all named Joe. I trek to their office on the third floor of a prewar building way the eff west on 34th Street, home to the junior Joe. They greet me with hugs and, as they’d done all during the summer, when I was writing a treatment for them, welcome me to the desk with the requisite bottle of water plus cookies, cocktail napkin, and coffee cup. China. You gotta love these guys. They have manners. (I know, I used to ghostwrite for Emily Post.)

And the amazing thing is: These nice guys, these courteous good people have been monumentally successful in the dog-doesn’t-return-dog’s-call world of New York.

The two senior Joes triumphed on Wall Street with their own little cell in one of the major firms, and everybody wanted in but they maintained their exclusive club: Joe & Joe. Now, they want to parlay that success by starting up a new TV production company, and—if we can only work out my contract—hire me to write the pilot, the very first episode of their sitcom.

Far from legal beavering, with cookies and coffee, and humans, we work out the kinks and within an hour, I’m ready to sign. And now, the fun begins.

Is writing a sitcom fun? You’ve got to write a laugh every three lines so this can be fun, or terrifying. Joe Junior is my writing partner, and we do everything we oughtta in the right order. Name and describe the characters. Identify the standing and swing locations. Write and refine the outline. Choose the format: multi-cam, the classic sitcom format ala Big Bang Theory and Two Broke Girls.

Most fun of all, we scout locations.

For our sitcom, we choose Brooklyn—not only because Brooklyn is the new Manhattan but also because I live here. On a happy Sunday in January, I drive Joe around. Our protagonist (named Joe) lives in the “real” Brooklyn, boroughs Brooklyn, out past the creeping Slope. We are hunting something you cannot readily find in Manhattan or Dumbo or Fort Greene anymore: a true dive bar. We need to find that perfect bar because, as with every sitcom you can think of, the characters need a local hangout in which to hang out.

And I happen to know of one. I’ve passed it many times, driving along America’s ugliest street, Coney Island Avenue, and I’ve peered curiously but never gone in—too dark, seedy, grungy, and not at all with an awning. But I’ve heard the reputation of the 773 Lounge, which attracts not only locals with three-day growth and their dogs but a smattering of brave souls from Manhattan. Exploring souls, the kind who like to “find” places, kind of like Captain Cook “found” the Tongan Isles. And it is here, on that fateful Sunday, that I bring young Joe, who pronounces, upon entering, “This place is perfect!”

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